Nearly three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the crisis continues to dominate, if not quite monopolize, the attention of policymakers and pundits in Europe and the U.S. It is the cause of weekly and even daily debates and ructions over everything from how much aid to Ukraine is enough and how much is too much, to which European leader has done the most to support Kyiv in its hour of need and which the least.
In addition to upending Europe’s security landscape, the war has also transformed Europe as an economic and political space. Finland and Sweden are clamoring to join NATO. The European Union has erected a still-rising barrier between the EU and Russian economies, albeit with grudging reluctance when it comes to energy trade. And there is no clear path back toward a status quo ante in which European governments and institutions engage with Russia as a normal actor in global politics.
But if the war in Ukraine has returned clarity and purpose to Europe as a pillar of the West, it has so far triggered little thought to the long-term consequences for the global order as well as Europe’s role in it.